Vader's Judgement
by RevanSentinel
Summary: Darth Vader visits the Jedi Temple, just after the events of Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader. He thinks he's settled his troubles with the past, but in the Archives, ghosts rise...


This was a short story I made

-It occurred to me that every time Vader visited the Jedi Temple in the immediate time after his transformation, he felt pangs of guilt.

-This takes place just after Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader

* * *

Rain poured down on the Jedi Temple. Although it was rare, occasional rainstorms did break through the artificially controlled troposphere. Like a black shadow, the crippled Dark Lord of the Sith made his way up the stairs and through the Temple Precinct.

He had been here many times before, getting holocrons and such for his Master. But he _knew_. He knew the real reason he was sent here so often. It was a painful reminder of his former life, one of happiness, love, one where he still had all of his limbs and could breathe the air.

"It really stings, doesn't it Anakin?" Vader turned around, but saw no one. Only the empty black of the once magnificent Jedi Archives.

"Hearing voices could be considered a sign of madness." Vader whirled around again. This time, the voice seemed to be coming from Madame Jocasta Nu's former desk.

"All these lives lost…but you were already a killer before then, right?" _Now_, Vader was starting to get irritated.

"SHOW YOURSELF!" He roared, causing the ground around him to crack.

"Ouch…destruction of property, causing a public nuisance _in a library_…You have _quite_ the rap sheet my friend. Not to mention butchering thousands of innocent civilians and Jedi." Vader saw movement in the corner of his eye, but when he turned, he saw nothing.

"You taunt, but are too scared to show yourself!" Vader sneered "How…_un-Jedi like_."

"_Please_…it's not like you aren't the same. But if you want to see me, alright!" The apparition of a teenage boy wearing Jedi robes appeared on a balcony above Vader.

"Look at you…" The boy said sadly. "…the Chosen One, humbled and crippled by the very enemy he swore to destroy!" He finished, appearing behind Vader. Those words struck a chord inside of the Dark Lord. They reminded him of Mustafar…and Obi-Wan.

"This was long in the making." The boy sighed, spreading out his arms and indicating the ruined Jedi Temple as a whole. "You already killed hundreds."

"They deserved to die!" Vader roared, silently wondering why he had to explain himself to a _boy_…

"Then explain it to a man." Vader whipped around. This time, the voice was that of a man, filled with wisdom "We are very much alike, you and I." Vader whirled back around, but the boy was still there…only there was a hooded man standing next to him. Vader could not see his face.

"Starting out as Jedi, both caught up in a war against an unreasonable enemy, both very radical and unorthodox…I find it amusing that the descendant of one of my enemies during my war was the template for your army." This gave Vader a small detail upon which to build up who the man was.

"You fought in the Mandalorian Wars, probably as a Revanchist." Vader sneered "You were a splinter group from the Jedi Order. You defied the Council's wishes and your leader took advantage of your loyalty to him and turned you all to the dark side."

"That's correct…mostly. But I'm not _a_ Revanchist…I'm _the_ Revanchist." The man chuckled. Now Vader knew who he was.

"Darth Revan… a poor excuse for both a Jedi and a Sith. Betrayed by both and betrayed both. _The Prodigal Knight_." He all but spat the words out…mostly because if he had, it would have caused him to have a coughing fit, that is, if he _had_ any saliva to spit out that wasn't taken away by the suit.

"But we're not here to talk about Revan." The boy interrupted "We're here to talk about _you_."

"How many of those Jedi were your friends and acquaintances?" Revan sneered, beginning to circle him.

"They were traitors, traitors to the Empire!" Vader protested.

"Keep on telling yourself that. Was Padme a traitor? How about those before the attack on the Jedi Temple?" The boy taunted, also circling him "Darra Thel-Tanis? She was a nice young girl who was killed because of you. Those Padawans on Jabiim? You led them into a slaughter." The boy gave a maniacal laugh. "Let's move on to the Temple, shall we?"

"Remember all those Jedi you killed?" Revan sighed, raising his hands to the air "Gate Master Jurokk, the younglings, Cin Drallig…I find it oddly funny that Whie's first words to you were 'I'm so glad you're not here to kill me!' and then, later, you cut him down, while strangling Bene."

"Serra Keto…you killed her by _shoving a pillar down on her_. What a horrible way to die." The boy said "And then…there's me. Fido El-Cyaro. I tried fighting you, remember? The three Padawans that gave you such a vicious fight in one of the classrooms?" Vader's blood began to chill. He did remember…

_Anakin…No, Darth Vader, that was what he was now, made his way through the hallways, leaving the dying Cin Drallig on the floor. "Master Anakin!" He turned his head. Three Jedi were running up to him, worried expressions on their faces. They did not know._

_ "We saw Master Ti escape the Temple. There are too many! They've already killed Madame Jocasta, and we don't know why they're doing this!" The female human Padawan whimpered._

_ "I know." Vader said, and leaned forward as if to tell her. He activated his lightsaber and swung it out at her. She screeched, but managed to back away before he stabbed her heart…but he had taken off her left arm._

_ "Run!" roared one of the other Padawans, a boy. Vader recognized the other one, Zett Jukasa. They retreated into an empty classroom, Vader hot on their heels._

_ The girl was waiting just next to the door, and brought her lightsaber up to strike, but Vader sliced her in two just as she raised the blade. "Zett, run! I'll hold him off. You get out of here!" The boy shouted, Force-shoving Vader back against the wall and allowing Zett to Force-leap over his head._

_ "I'll get him eventually, or the clones will." Vader warned. The boy chuckled darkly._

_ "Not before I get you first!" the boy roared, leaping forward and activating his blue blade with a _snap-hiss_. Vader dodged the strike and landed a stinging blow to the boy's back. Ignoring the pain, the boy used the Force to hurl a desk at Vader, who narrowly dodged it. Their blades met in a flash of brilliant colors. The boy was clearly tired, having already been wounded before the fight._

_ "Arrgh!" The boy began hurling everything he could at Vader, who easily dodged it. That was it, playtime was over. Vader used the Force to tear out metal spikes from the wall and began hurling them at the boy. He dodged most of them, but one lodged in his right forearm and another in his left thigh._

_Breathing deeply, the boy ignored the excruciating pain and leaped backwards, before charging towards Vader, his lightsaber outstretched. As he drew near, Vader knocked the saber out of the boy's hand and the momentum of the boy's run sent him charging straight into Vader's blade._

_A look of pure fear and shock was fixated on the boy's face as he slowly collapsed. In desperation, he tried to Force-call his lightsaber back into his hand, but he was too weak. Vader waited until the boy was dead before walking back outside and continuing his slaughter._

"I tell you, it hurts to be killed…" Fido laughed "…but you already know the pain. You enjoy it…_feeding_ off of it. Getting high from it!"

"You would be wise to shut up now!" Vader growled, fear seeping into him. He had no defense against these spirits' taunts. He had no way to stop them. They knew _everything_.

"The Dark Lord of the Sith, reduced to a crying baby." Fido taunted "Nothing more than a petty slave! You never understood the true power of the Force! I did, just as I died! I preserved my spirit within these walls. Never dying, always living, always taunting."

Revan laughed and drew up images of Obi-Wan, Yoda, _Padme_…

"_**ENOUGH!**_" Vader roared, sending a huge shockwave of Force energy through the Temple. Revan roared and disappeared. Fido looked at Vader with shock at first, and then triumph.

"Doesn't matter if you destroy my spirit…" he laughed as his apparition slowly faded away as it was pushed into oblivion "…my words will always stay with you, spoken by others. What did Roan Shryne say? '_The Force will never die…_'"

Vader gathered his cloak around him and stormed out of the Archives. A squad of stormtroopers rushed up to him, but backed away quickly when he Force-shoved one of them into a wall.

Did Palpatine really send him here this time to get holocrons? Or was this a test for Vader, a reminder of his past? Having someone who he killed to torment him. Darth Sidious was his master and he could not do anything about that.

'_But one day,_' Vader swore to himself '_I will have my own apprentice, and together, we will strike down Sidious and crush what remnants of the Jedi still remain! So swears Vader!_'


End file.
